


Diametrically Opposed Foes

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Pining, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Reunions, Sexual Humor, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 07:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9646685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: An insane Time Lady, an archaeologist, and a time-looped English teacher walk into a bar. Time progresses in a disappointingly linear fashion, and an absent Scottish Time Lord is discussed with varying degrees of fondness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Slight deviation from my usual posting schedule this week, as I won't have access to a laptop tomorrow, but I figured no one would mind! This is a silly fluffy fic based on [this post](http://pcap-recap.tumblr.com/post/134924335730/dreameater1988-headcanon-clara-missy-and).
> 
> Fic title is from "The Room Where It Happens" from Hamilton.

Clara sank into the leather-upholstered booth with a sigh, surreptitiously checking her watch as she did so and wondering whether her timekeeping was still up to scratch. It had been such a while since she’d needed to be on time for anything, and even longer since she’d last rendezvoused with today’s companions. If “companions” was even the right word to use – she was sure that Missy would object to the term for reasons of speciesism or something similar, and she made a mental note to reclassify themselves before their next meeting. 

“Don’t worry pet,” came a Scottish voice from the shadows, and Clara suppressed a groan as she watched Missy slide into the light with a maddening smirk on her face. “You’re not late.” 

“River is,” Clara countered, pointedly adjusting the holster tucked neatly under her left arm while affixing the Time Lady with a look that she hoped served as an adequate threat. “ _Again_.” 

“I honestly don’t know why you insist on bringing that thing with you,” Missy clucked, eyeing the gun with an amused gaze that only served to irritate Clara further. “It’s pointless.” 

“It’s self-defence.” 

“You say that like I keep trying to kill you.”

“You _do_ keep trying to kill me. Remember last time? When you tried to jettison that room from your TARDIS and I ended up clinging to the fuselage by my fingertips in deep space?”

“Fine,” Missy concurred, examining her nails with spirited disinterest, before adding in a distinctly snide tone: “But it’s not like you can _actually_ die.”

Clara scowled in response, her mood souring as she was reminded, for the millionth time, of her suspended state. As if she _needed_ reminding. “Well, it’s not like you can either, but I can still massively inconvenience you while I’m busy not-dying. A nice new regeneration would be just what you need.” 

“Dear me, am I interrupting something?” River purred, materialising neatly into her own seat, already sipping a tall cocktail and wearing an expression of considerable smugness. “I can leave you ladies to it.” 

“For the love of all that is holy,” Clara implored, groaning aloud as she realised the reason for River’s countenance. “If you’re late because you’ve been shagging him again, _please_ don’t give us another rundown. It was bad enough last time. We don’t need to know how bendy he is, or how you can choke him limitlessly and he won’t die.” 

“Only because you wish it was you doing it.” River shot back, and Clara turned a delicate shade of pink and fell silent, too embarrassed to think of a response. River had a point, of course, but raising it in front of Missy seemed unnecessary.

“I do so enjoy your ability to do that,” Missy said approvingly, clicking her fingers until a waiter appeared and slid a whiskey on the rocks across the table to her. Clara glared at her as she took a sip. “It’s an enviable skill.”

“I do so recommend that you stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Clara said with saccharine sweetness, fingers straying towards her holster as she spoke in a non-verbal threat that even Missy could understand. “Or someone is going to get shot, and it’s not going to be me.” 

“Are you _still_ carrying that thing around?” River said in exasperation, rolling her eyes at Clara. “For god sake, Missy is largely harmless. As long as you’re not a planet, a species, or… OK, look, you’re basically doomed, but she means it in a fond way.” 

“Do I?” 

“Yes, you do,” River informed her tartly, attempting to make peace between the two women. “I like to think of it as your way of showing affection. Just like mine is-” 

“Please for the love of god do not say ‘blowjobs,’” Clara warned, putting her head in her hands and contemplating sticking her fingers in her ears. “Or I will be forced to intervene.” 

“I was going to say ‘hugs’ actually,” River smirked, and Clara narrowed her eyes at her, knowing that she was only behaving like this to wind her up but still finding herself rising to the bait. “But your version works too. Are you not drinking? How tremendously dull.” 

“Not a lot of point, is there?” Clara snapped, looking between River and Missy’s drinks with envy before conceding glumly: “Not like I can taste anything. Not like it _does_ anything.” She sighed. Wine had been a vice for her during her teaching days, and she missed to ability to have a drink with friends at the end of a long day, as well as the warm buzz it used to give her. She sighed again. She missed _having_ friends, end of. Not that they’d gone anywhere – they’d simply mourned her passing and moved on with their lives without her. Now all she had left was River, Missy and Ashildr, and that wasn’t the widest social circle in the universe. Three immortals and a professor with a limited shelf life; three women who loved the Doctor and one who loathed him. Altogether far too much infighting for her liking. 

“Lord, I forgot immortals do this,” River rolled her eyes, clearly irritated by Clara’s bleak outlook. “Don’t you start having an existential crisis on me. You are absolutely forbidden from turning into the immortal version of a moody, nihilistic teenage boy. I won’t have it.” 

“What’s the _point_?” Clara complained, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth and trying to ignore the ‘teenager’ comment. “There isn’t any. It’s just a waste of money.”

“Says the woman with the time machine, who can win the lottery whenever she likes.” 

“That’s unethical.”

“You’re only sore about it because last time you nearly got caught,” Missy jibed, and Clara scowled, recalling the incident with perfect clarity. “Being unethical is fine, but not being perfect? Ooh, that’s a sore spot for Miss Oswald.” 

Clara blinked at her in consternation, unused to her name being used in such a way. “No one’s called me that for years,” she said after a moment, her tone wistful as she thought back to her time at Coal Hill. “Sounds weird.” 

“I know you miss it,” River began, ordering a glass of wine for Clara before continuing on a well-rehearsed and much-used lecture: “But you know you can’t go back.”

“Of course I know that,” Clara snapped, resenting River for patronising her. “I’m not stupid.”

“Well, you fooled me,” Missy muttered, then added more loudly: “Look, are we gonna talk about my bezzie mate, or is the puppy just going to sit and whine?”

“I’m a puppy,” Clara barbed, poking her tongue out at Missy in a childish manner but no longer caring. “Whining is in my job description.”

“Look, you actually said that,” River rolled her eyes at Clara’s words. “So don’t come crying to me when she holds it over you.” 

“I don’t come crying to you anyway,” Clara noted. “That’s what Ashildr is for.” 

“Where is our favourite immortal Viking?” Missy asked, eyes wide and innocent as she broached the topic. “I do miss her.”

“She doesn’t miss you,” Clara said drily, recalling the Time Lady’s last meeting with her travelling companion. “Or the attempts to test her immortality.” 

“She’s no fun at all. The Doctor would appreciate my little science experiments.”

“And finally, someone mentions the reason we’re all here,” Clara raised her eyebrows, glad to be back to a familiar topic. “We get to the point at last.” 

“Excuse me,” River interjected, frowning at Clara as she spoke and adopting a put-upon expression. “I’d have mentioned him as soon as I arrived, but I was loudly warned not to discuss my sex life.” 

“That’s because it’s gross and it’s embarrassing and we don’t need to know the kind of details you impart to us,” Clara reminded her, before adding: “And also because you tend to get loud and drunk and broadcast the details to the entire bar, and it’s mortifying.” She shuddered at the memory. 

“I reiterate that you’re just jealous.”

“That too,” Clara concurred easily, tipping her a wink and watching the older woman seethe in response. “So. Missy, when was the last time you saw him?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the Time Lady thought for a moment, mulling over the question. “A couple of months ago. I was trying to get the parts to make a proton beam, but he decided he was going to intervene. He does so enjoy foiling my little schemes, it’s really getting quite maddening. I had a backup plan, but I feel like he wasn’t being particularly fun or open-minded in stopping me.” 

“What was the beam _for_?” River enquired, and Missy sighed in defeat. 

“Assassinating the President of Mars to ensure a militaristic coup, that would almost have certainly ended with me being installed as the new lady president and thus implementing a dictatorship-slash-personality-cult.”

“My heart bleeds for you,” River deadpanned, and Clara smirked in solidarity. “Is he still wearing that preposterous magician’s coat?”

“Hey!” Clara protested, insulted and wounded in equal measure. “That’s a great jacket.” 

“It’s getting a bit threadbare now,” Missy noted with a shrug, and Clara felt the phantom sensation of her heart sinking. “The sleeves are really starting to wear down. Bit like him. He said he keeps it because of a sense of obligation.” 

“To?” Clara asked, feeling a swooping sense of optimism at the prospect of him remembering her. 

“He didn’t know, silly,” Missy rolled her eyes, and Clara felt her hopes shatter. “Do remember that he wiped his idiotic mind.” 

“Hey,” River chided, noticing Clara’s face fall and reaching over to squeeze the younger woman’s hand in reassurance. Clara smiled at her timidly, appreciating the gesture and squeezing back. “Be nice.” 

“Nice is for other people, dear. What incarnation have you just finished shagging? The eyebrows? The chin? The sandshoes?” 

“The chin,” River disclosed, and Clara grinned despite herself, remembering the first incarnation of the Doctor she had met with a sense of fondness. “He’s like an awkward puppy, really. Such a shame you never got to meet him, you’d have loved flustering him. It’s _so_ easily done. He’s got too many limbs for him to know what to do with, and the hair! So much of it, and it’s all foppish. He thinks he’s terribly dashing. I don’t have the heart to tell him otherwise.”

“Does he leave the bowtie on when he shags?” Missy asked, cocking an eyebrow, but River only smirked in response as Clara giggled, imagining the prospect with a mixture of horror and intrigue. “Come on. Share.” 

“It has… other uses,” she teased, and Clara feigned a shudder of horror. “I’ve weaned him off hats for now. In the bedroom at least.” 

“It was a small mercy that mine wasn’t one for hats,” Clara noted, feeling a sense of relief that he’d never gone in search of a fez post-regeneration. “He’d have hated the idea. Space helmets: fine. Hats: not fine. I think he’d actually have come out in a rash at the mere mention of a fez.”

“Now there’s a science experiment I need to see carried out,” River turned her gaze to Missy and grinned in enthusiasm. “Any volunteers?” 

“Can I line the hat with razors?”

“No.” 

“Can I fill it with a deadly pathogen?” 

“No.” 

“Boring, not interested,” Missy said dismissively, then turned her gaze to Clara, and something in her expression softened. “And you? When did you last see him?”

“You know I don’t-” 

“Spare us both the lies.” 

Clara sighed, picking at her nails before confessing unwillingly: “Last week.” 

“Last _week_?!” River exclaimed with horror. “Are you just following him around?”

“No,” Clara said, a little too quickly, casting her gaze down to the table to avoid meeting either woman’s gaze. “Not really. Maybe a little bit.” 

“Clara, we’ve discussed this,” River chided as gently as she was able. “Why it’s dangerous. Why it’s a bad idea. He might see you.” 

“Well, he didn’t,” Clara knocked back a gulp of her wine, then grimaced at the sour taste. “He’s got a new friend with him. Which is good, I suppose. A nice new companion.” 

“The one with all the hair?” Missy asked, squinting as she fought to remember the girl’s name. “Bob or Bert or something.” 

“Bill,” Clara corrected, then added: “She seems nice.” 

“For the love of Rassilon, tell me you haven’t spoken to her,” River warned, then noticed Clara’s expression and groaned, resting her head in her hands. “For Pete’s sake, _why_?” 

“She didn’t know who I was! And I didn’t tell her! We just had a quick chat in Starbucks about travel and such. How she was enjoying travelling and new experiences and getting away from uni for a bit.” 

“Dear god, you’re such a stereotype.” Missy complained, raising her eyebrows disdainfully. “Starbucks. _Honestly_.” 

“Missy, _you_ vetoed _me_ , it’s only fair I veto the next one,” Clara snapped, irritated by the Time Lady’s response, then added in a gentler tone: “She gets the seal of approval.”

Missy and River rolled their eyes in synchronicity, oozing disapproval. “You shouldn’t be so invested,” River began, and Clara sensed the beginning of a speech. “It’s not g-”

“How’s the box of annoying things?” Clara asked, seeking to change the subject before River could get going on the matter of warning her away from the Doctor. “What’s he added now?”

“He’d put an air-horn in there when I checked last night,” River said after a beat, evidently deciding not to press the issue, much to Clara’s relief. “Which was… unsurprising, really. Loud, bombastic… just his sort of thing.” 

“Why were you looking in the box?” Missy asked, before adding snidely: “Shouldn’t you have been shagging?”

“Well,” River winked at her companions. “He’d put some ah… vibrating objects in there. He didn’t know what they were, but he liked the noise they made. So, I was hunting for them.”

“Didn’t think he was that unsatisfying a lover,” Missy quipped, and River shot her a dark look as Clara bit back a snort. “Relax, dearie, I’m joking. It’s so like him to enjoy the noise.”

“He’s… really quite spectacularly oblivious,” Clara added with a fond smile. “He had a blindfold in there back in my day… completely clueless as to why I kept smirking when he mentioned it 

“You smirk a lot,” Missy rationalised, shrugging dismissively. “That’s more or less your default facial expression. So I can’t blame the man for being less than aware of why your face is doing things.”

“Are you just going to insult me, or actually present your findings?” Clara asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly. “Like, I know it’s tradition for you to do both, but the latter is more conventional. What’s he added? Spill.”

“I left my handcuffs in his box the last time I saw him,” Missy confessed with a gleeful giggle. “Purely for the joy of thinking about him trying to use them for science and ending up getting cuffed to the railings of his own ship, trussed up like a turkey and quite stuck. Bless his poor little companion, she’s going to be so confused.” 

“Well,” Clara began, starting to laugh as she imagined the scenario playing out as Missy described. “That’s…” 

“Really quite evil,” River continued, chuckling at the thought. “But an excellent image. The idiot is definitely going to end up getting stuck like that, and I sense the TARDIS will be less than helpful…”

“I miss the old girl,” Clara said suddenly, her laughter fading as she thought nostalgically of their adventures aboard his TARDIS. _Their_ TARDIS. “Mine’s nice but… not really the same. Not as homely as his was.”

“How’s the flying going?” River asked. “You remember what I said about not leaving the handbrakes on?” 

“Yup,” Clara retorted, and smiled gratefully at the older woman. “She’s in a better mood because of it, thanks. Much more cooperative about going where I want her to go, which makes a nice change.” 

“They’re tricksy things, TARDISes,” Missy cocked her head to one side, surveying Clara with a long look. “I do hope you haven’t done anything ridiculously sentimental and named yours.” 

“The Doctor named his,” River interjected. “He called his-” 

“’Sexy’, yes, I am aware of that. I was referring to the idiotic human practice of naming vehicles after other idiotic humans.”

“She hasn’t got a name, no,” Clara explained with a casual shrug, unable to help herself adding proudly: “But I do.” 

“I heard about this,” Missy said with disdain, her nose wrinkling at the notion. “’The Teacher.’ Very… well, let’s put it this way, the Time Lords won’t be happy about you appropriating their naming practices.” 

“Yeah, but the Time Lords are stuffy as hell, and besides, it keeps me off his radar,” Clara argued. “He can’t go looking for me if there’s no trace of me by my _actual_ name. Stops the universe ending, that kind of thing.”

“She makes a salient point,” River admitted. “I think it’s a prudent decision.”

“You would,” Missy muttered, finishing her drink and slamming the empty tumbler down with unnecessary force before looking around at her companions. “Anyone for more alcohol?” 

“I’m good thanks,” Clara said, holding up her still mostly full glass and taking a tokenistic sip. “River?” 

“I’ll stick to my cocktail,” she raised the glass and it refilled itself to the brim. “Perfect.” 

“How do you _do_ that?” Clara marvelled, slightly jealous of the ability. “Not that it’s in any way useful to me, but it’s cool.” 

“Disgracefully,” River smirked, and Clara quirked one eyebrow. “Speaking of which, last night… you’ll never believe it, but he actually managed to _fall out of bed_. Mid-shag. It was the least graceful thing you’ve ever seen.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Clara said, with a low chuckle, imagining him finding himself on the floor, a tangle of limbs and sheets and mussed-up hair. “He was never a great one for coordination.” 

“Never will be, I reckon,” Missy added, then leaning in conspiratorially. “I mean, even back at the Academy he wasn’t a great one for physical prowess.” 

“What was he like at the Academy? Back in the good old days?” Clara asked, mirroring Missy’s gesture. “I mean, a nightmare. Obviously. How much stuff did he blow up?” 

“Deliberately? Only a couple of classrooms. Accidentally? Pretty much everything he touched, including at one memorable point, his own eyebrows. And mine.”

“How…” 

“Science experiments, dear. Highly unstable elements mixed with highly unstable Gallifreyan hormones… it was always going to be a car crash, really. Mine grew back pretty rapidly, but he looked rather surprised for a good few months while his were growing back in.” 

“Idiot,” River said fondly. “What classrooms were they?” 

“Oh, the boring ones. History, mainly. And telepathy. He hated both of them, until much later on. Then he mostly wished he’d paid more attention, particularly when he started spending time on your dull little planet.”

“Well, that’s just teenagers for you, isn’t it?” Clara said wryly, letting the Earth comment slide, and River grinned. “Thinking they know best, then realising they don’t. The ones I taught were exactly the same.” 

River’s communicator beeped, and she pulled it out and grimaced. “Speaking of which… that’s my university. Student-based crisis occurring, and I’m needed. So, it’s been a pleasure, ladies, see you in another decade.” 

“Try not to shag him too senseless,” Missy said with a smirk, in lieu of a goodbye. “I like him able to stand.”

“What… she said,” Clara said weakly, fluttering her fingers at River. “Bye.” 

River dropped her a wink, then disappeared with a _pop_. 

“Well,” Missy said, sighing theatrically and pulling out her communicator. “Places to invade, peoples to enslave. Have a lovely decade. I promise not to try and kill you during this one.” 

“You said that last time.” 

“…fine, not to try and kill you _as much_. Not like you can die. Do I have to keep reminding you? It’s getting rather dull.” 

“Bye, Missy,” Clara said firmly, and watched as the Time Lady dematerialised in a muted flash of light. She checked her watch again, then flipped open her notebook and squinted at a list of dates under the scrawled heading of _Doctor??_ “Right,” she muttered, running a finger down the list and stopping at a likely entry. “The Lost Moon of Triton, 2167... let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos to [Alex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman) for [Clara's title](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8630719).


End file.
